Topline
Bluesky, once touted as a challenger to Elon Musk’s X and a haven for liberal-leaing social media users, saw a sharp decline in daily active users in the year since President Donald Trump’s second election victory, according to data shared with Forbes by Similarweb, while Trump’s own Truth Social remains much smaller than the major platforms, but made some gains.
Bluesky’s daily active users are down nearly 40% since last year. (Photo by Anna Barclay/Getty Images)
Getty Images
Key Facts
Bluesky’s number of average daily active users on mobile devices worldwide is down 39.8% year-over-year as of the end of October, according to data from Similarweb, a digital market intelligence company, a much steeper decline than other major social networks over the same period.
Though Bluesky’s traffic held steady for a few months, slightly rising from 5.8 million average daily active users in October 2024 to 6 million in March 2025, traffic began to plunge every month afterward, hitting a low of 3.5 million daily active users on mobile devices in October 2025.
Usage of X also dropped 13.3% year-over-year over the same period, dipping from 148.5 million daily active users on mobile worldwide in October 2024 to 128.8 million daily active users in October 2025.
X’s decline stands in stark contrast to the Meta-owned, text-based social media platform Threads, launched in 2023 as a challenger to X, which saw a 53% surge in average daily active users over the same period (and saw it overtake X).
Trump’s own social media platform Truth Social grew in daily average users on mobile devices by 32%, though traffic for the platform varies widely month-to-month and appears to spike only after Trump makes big announcements on the platform.
Why Is Bluesky’s Traffic Tanking?
Founded by Twitter co-founder and billionaire Jack Dorsey, Bluesky launched its invite-only beta version in early 2023 with a nearly indistinguishable look from Twitter. Bluesky generated buzz among users who were disgruntled with Musk’s leadership of Twitter, which he purchased and rebranded to X with an emphasis on “free speech,” changing key features like verification and content moderation—though critics say this allowed misinformation and hate speech to proliferate. Bluesky surged in interest after Musk’s Twitter takeover, and again after Trump won his second presidential election last year. Two weeks after Trump’s election victory, Similarweb said usage of the Bluesky app spiked 500% in the United States. But some reports suggest Bluesky never rivaled X in its number of users, and its more left-of-center political discourse limited its growth. A New York Times magazine piece in December 2024 said despite the post-election surge in Bluesky traffic, the platform never became as “robust (read: fun)” as X, where the “jokes and ideas are more polished” and users can find “more up-to-the-minute analysis” on news and cultural moments. A Wired reporter wrote a piece titled “Bluesky can’t take a joke,” describing an apparent humor gap between X and Bluesky, and Slate writers said in June that on Bluesky, the “jokes are far outweighed by the solemnity” of its focus on politics. Billionaire Bluesky user Mark Cuban voiced frustration with Bluesky’s heavily liberal user base, saying in a post in June the discourse on the app has become “hateful” and “went from great convos on many topics, to agree with me or you are a nazi fascist.” Musk, responding to a screenshot of Cuban’s comments, called Bluesky users a “bunch of super judgy hall monitors.” In September, the New Yorker described a “culture of recursive, reactionary scolding on Bluesky that makes it less fun,” suggesting some liberal users were returning to X following Musk’s split from the Trump administration.
Read More
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2025/11/07/bluesky-and-x-users-plummet-year-after-trumps-election-win-truth-social-makes-small-gains/
